If you are ever going to lead effectively you must understand how to work with a team! I remember there was a time I had the opportunity to lead a group of people when I went to the Northern part of Nigeria. I had someone who was leading the team before me and at some point I knew I might get a chance to lead the team as well. Shortly before the leader of the team was going to leave, I was called and asked if I was willing to lead the team. I said yes and that was not only because I was just interested in the position but because I had thought about how to create teams and work effectively with them. I think there are too many leaders who really cannot even look at a team, assess the strength of individuals in the team and let them work in areas of their strength to achieve the ultimate goal of the organization!

One of the things I finally did when I became the leader of that organization was to think about the things that we wanted to do first as a general team. I wrote all the things down and finally began to create teams from the general task that had to be done! I went into one of our meetings and asked everyone which team they would love to work with. I saw people walking into different teams and I think they really walked into the teams where they could be most effective. The only thing I did was that I had chosen the people who would be the leaders of each team. I knew those leaders and I could work with them so I was able to spend less time with everyone by working more with the leaders and allowing those leaders to work with the other people. That way, the people I chose as leaders felt empowered and they were willing to work.

The other very important thing to do apart from just breaking people into small teams is to make sure that each team has a clear job description and that they can work well with the description that has been given to them. When you create a team you need to have a team leader and you must empower the team leader to do his or her job. You cannot call someone a team leader and be accusing or be challenging the authority of that person in the presence of those you have asked him to lead! If for any reason you want to rebuke a team leader you have to call the person into a closet and let the team leader see what has gone wrong.

When working with a team, you should strengthen your team rather than fight your team! You need to let each person know his or her role and not allow them fight each other. Put confidence in each member of your team but you should also caution them to make sure the confidence does not translate to arrogance! You should never suppress the gifts or talents of any individual in the team. When you see anyone who has some strengths that you can work with, one of the things you should do is to help the person harness the skill rather than trying to put the person down because you feel intimidated!

I must add that if you are going to lead a team you need to have your confidence properly built. If you have issues with your confidence you will not be able to lead a team and you will be getting into a personal fight rather than focusing on the task that the organization needs to clear! You cannot afford not to know who you are as a person because you will have people in your team who have identity crisis! Once your own identity issue is settled then you can lead a team and help other people who have identity issues. One of your strengths as a leader is that you can coordinate a team regardless of their strengths and weaknesses and still help each person become better while achieving your desired result!

Working with a team is a serious task. You have to be a team player yourself before you can expect any other person to be a team player. As a team player you will learn to forget some of your own opinions because some other people may have better suggestions! You will learn to live with the fact that your ideas may not be the best but you are still the leader of the team! You must also reckon with the fact that everyone in your team is very important and you can get things done through anyone but you must put a measure of confidence in people before they can give you their best efforts!

Even though I have said that leading a team is a serious task, I should let you know that it is something that is enjoyable if you remember to empower your team, trust your team, know their strengths and let them work in their areas of strength and never get in the way of the team when trying to do what you have asked them to do! You should also learn and enjoy staying back once in a while for others to work and you watch how they might do things when you step down as the leader!

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Fola Daniel Adelesi

Fola Daniel Adelesi is a professional public speaker who also trains other speakers. He's a highly engaging training facilitator and he holds his large audience spell bound when speaking at gatherings. Apart from his several platforms which include banks, insurance companies and religious organizations where he facilitates trainings, he has been a part of some national television shows and he spoke so intelligently.
He's an author, business consultant and highly skilled master of ceremony with excellent poise and diction. He was on the Debaters TV reality show season 1, he presented 'You Can' on Radio Continental in 2011 and he did motivational segments on Galaxy TV from Dec 2008 to August 2009. Fola Daniel has authored at least 5 books including ‘Writing Business Proposals,’ ‘The Mentoring father’ and ‘Get up and hit that goal.’ He talked about Social Media on Info.com - An ICT Show on Lagos Television from August 2015 to late 2016. He’s a regular guest on some national tv platforms (including Channels TV and Television Continental) and a delight to their audience.
He trained as a communications professional, works as a business consultant and was also trained at Lagos Business School in collaboration with Google as a Digital Business Manager. He is the President and CEO of the Edible Pen Group.

Starting and promoting a blog

Fola Daniel Speaks on Excuses in this video from 2009

Writing Business Proposal

You can get books from @foladaniel on www.amazon.com/author/foladaniel or https://okadabooks.com/user/EdiblePen

deeper than depths

You can get books from @foladaniel on www.amazon.com/author/foladaniel or https://okadabooks.com/user/EdiblePenYou can get books from @foladaniel on www.amazon.com/author/foladaniel or https://okadabooks.com/user/EdiblePen